Vanhoozer formulates this definition of inerrancy:
I propose the following definition: to say that Scripture is inerrant is to confess faith that the authors speak the truth in all things they affirm (when they make affirmations), and will eventually be seen to have spoken truly (when right readers read rightly).
His understanding of inerrancy is based, in part, on Augustine’s famous assertion about the biblical text:
And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand.
Vanhoozer maintains that one must hold to a “well-versed” inerrancy – an inerrancy that places emphasis on the communicative acts of Scripture: “Well-versed inerrancy acknowledges that biblical truth involves form as well as content.” His form of inerrancy requires that the reader, from a position of faith (a right reader), seek to understand the form of the literature (read-rightly) in order to properly understand what Scripture is communicating.
Scripture communicates artfully; it employs irony, rhetoric, metaphor, and various other literary genres to communicate to us. We are not properly understanding the Scripture’s communicative act, if, for instance, we take irony literalistically. Such reading is naive.
Vanhoozer’s analogy of the map is a great illustration of the point:
Truth is indeed about reality, but there is more than one way to render reality in language. We have truth ‘when what is said is that this is how things are.’ The map of the Paris metro is about the Paris metro – is says, ‘This is how the Paris metro is’ – but ‘the way the words go’ (if maps could speak!) is not like the way a picture corresponds. The tracks that take tourists to the Eiffle Tower are not really orange, as they are on the map, nor are they only a centimeter wide. Most users understand the convention. Truth is the ‘fit’ between text and reality, between what is written and what is written about, but one can speak about (map) the same terrain in many ways.
Thus, one can speak about reality in different ways. If I may borrow from Moberly to add to Vanhoozer (I don’t think I am mixing threads here), fiction is not necessarily synonymous with false. Fiction also communicates truth even if it not historical. Coming back to Scripture, Scripture, especially the narratives do more than just communicate historical realities. To limit those historical narratives to the genre of Modern historicism is to turn a deaf ear (Vanhoozer’s analogy) to Scripture’s communicative act. Thus, determining the historicity of the narrative as false does not necessarily break Vanhoozer’s formulation of inerrancy.
I think Vanhoozer’s formulation is helpful because it pays close attention to the “literariness” of Scripture and lets Scripture be what it is: God’s speech-act defining, rebuking, exhorting, teaching, etc. The only question I have is does Scripture’s communicative act require that originating narrative be historically true? Michael Bird asks, “How much hyperbole or artistry would disqualify the account from being historical?” How closely must the “artistry” be tied to a historical referent?
Vanhoozer’s definition is a right-adjustment for evangelical reading. Historical questions should not be allowed shout out Scripture’s own communicative act.We must not give up on determining historical realities. We must begin, however, with hearing Scripture speak instead of assuming what it is speaking about.
nathanielcooley 
Leave a Reply